The Fourth Element
by Baroness Emma
Summary: Spock never knew how elegantly a human could articulate.
1. Ordered

**A/N** - This story fits in between chapters Fourteen and Fifteen of "The Tides of Vulcan", and takes place during Uhura's first Spring Break at Starfleet Academy.

Enjoy!

* * *

_"Earth ~ Air ~ Fire ~ Water ~ Aether_

_All these exist in their own space, apart,_

_Trying ever to stay within their right realm."_

- From "Translations of Vulcan Poetry" by Nyota Uhura

* * *

=/\=

* * *

**The Fourth Element**

"Sir, I fail to see the purpose of an exercise such as this."

"Spock, you'd be the perfect chaperon!"

"Perhaps," Spock tilted his head a fraction and regarded his friend and superior, "And yet precisely seventy-eight seconds ago you mentioned that I would also be able to "have fun" and "be myself" - are not the two roles mutually incompatible?"

"Not for you," Christopher Pike sighed, "And let's face it, son, there's no other way you'd _ever_ participate with Spring Break."

"You are correct, Sir, as I did not do so as a cadet, there is no reason for me to begin the practice as an instructor."

"On the contrary, there is _every_ reason. . . look. . ." Chris leaned forward, talking to his half-Vulcan protege in a kind and very human tone, "These kids need a chaperon, and it can't be me - I'm getting too old for three-day benders and cruising the beaches of Malibu. . ." he paused for a split second and half smirked, "Well, maybe not _entirely_ too old, but you know I can't go out with these kids - I'd just make them uncomfortable and they wouldn't loosen up, and that would ruin the whole point of Spring Break."

"And it is your opinion that if I accompany them, I will not make them uncomfortable?"

Pike rubbed his eyes and prepared to give it up and just make his request an order, "Nearly every other instructor has plans for the week, Spock, and those who don't are ones I wouldn't trust anywhere near a group of my suddenly-off-the-leash, cream-of-the-crop cadets. _You_, I trust, and you're young enough and human enough and Vulcan enough to survive a trip to the beach with fifteen freshmen on their first break in months. Understand now?"

"Inevitably, sir."

If Pike hadn't already known better, he would have said that the younger man wilted just a tiny bit.

"And cheer up," Chris grinned, "This isn't me punishing you, you know - I really do want you to have fun and be yourself for a while."

"As I believe I said, sir, the two concepts are mutually incompatible."

"And as I've been trying to tell you for over four years - that's a load of Vulcan bull."

"Yes sir. . ."

"Pack light, Spock, Malibu is warm this time of year."


	2. Earth

_"Well, it is Earth with me; silence resumes her reign."_

- Robert Browning

* * *

=/\=

* * *

**Earth**

It seemed there was nowhere quiet anymore.

Instead of reserving expensive transporter tickets for the trip, Spock had opted to rent a hoverbus and pilot it himself. It had been the wiser choice financially, but given the cadets' behavior during the three hour journey, he was in some doubt as to whether it had been the wiser choice psychologically.

He was not at all sure _why_ there should be almost one hundred bottles of beer on any wall, anywhere, at any time, or why any group of people should feel it necessary to sing about them at length, but the cadets left him in no doubt that somewhere, there was indeed such a place, and that they wished to sing about it for a very long time indeed.

He was also quite undecided as to who or what a "Spongbob Squarepants" was, but apparently this entity also had a theme song that was quite popular.

He temporarily blocked all memory of the several minutes that had been full of flying bits of food and moist paper - the one time he had verbally and physically intervened in the activities in the rear of the hoverbus - as it had caused him no little confusion and some emotional distress, and he would have to meditate on it at a later time.

After that there had been several most noisy card games, and he could smell the covert consumption of something alcoholic.

He was not the only non-human on this journey, but for most of it he was entirely convinced he was the only sane one.

The trip took almost exactly three hours, but for Spock, it was interminable.

When at last they reached the hostelry they had reserved rooms at for the duration of their stay, he spent considerable time organizing their room assignments and belongings in a fashion which would allow for the most optimal functionality and give him the greatest accessibility possible to them, for he was quite certain that the rooms would be only be minimally used for their intended purpose, and likely used a great deal for _extremely_ inappropriate activities.

He made absolutely certain that his own private room was at least two levels above the floor theirs was on. He might _know_ what was likely to occur, but he had no desire to listen to it.

Finally everything was in order, and he quite solemnly asked for a consensus on the next planned activity.

He managed to keep his reactions in check when fifteen boisterous and by now very frustrated cadets shouted "BEACH!" a great deal louder than he had anticipated.

Thankfully, all the girls retired to one room to change into their beach wear, and the boys were speedily in nothing but boxer shorts and t-shirts - garments with which Spock was more than familiar, and thus there was little or no reason for discomfort.

If he ignored what they were saying, of course. . .

"_Beaches_!" one particularly excitable cadet was intimating, "With _California_ girls on them! Maaaaan you should see. . ."

The rest of the statement was lost in a great rush of impatient chatter.

"The waves on this one place around here get to be 20 meters high! Can you imagine riding something like that? The biggest I've seen were in Hawaii and there they only. . ."

"I hear there's a restaurant where you can get something called a "Galaxy hamburger" with each ingredient coming from a different major planet in the. . ."

"Tonight we HAVE to go to the Boardwalk and see the. . ."

At this point the girls came back in again, and the conversation became even more trivial and incoherent. One very bouncy Orion girl came up to Spock and attempted to engage him in the banal discussion.

"You know every year they have a sand castle building contest here? Some of them are twelve feet high, and. . ."

"I am familiar with the concept of sand, Cadet," he said, almost brusquely, "Vulcan is a desert planet."

That remark also left no one present in doubt of his complete understanding of the concept of "dry" humor, and mercifully, this meant that during the short walk to the beachfront, they left him in peace for almost twenty minutes.

It was the second most pleasant twenty minutes he was to experience for the next seven days.


	3. Air

"_What light is to the eyes - What air is to the lungs - What love is to the heart - Liberty is to the soul of man._"

- Robert Green Ingersoll

* * *

=/\=

* * *

**Air**

The scent of the ocean had always been fascinating to him.

The first time he had seen the Pacific (a singularly illogical name, if ever he had heard one) he had been mostly prepared for the size, the motion, the sound, the temperature - in fact he had been told so much, and had researched so thoroughly about Earth's oceans that he had even anticipated the sheer undeniable impressiveness of the experience. The ocean was so big, so forceful a presence, such a very great part of the Terran psyche, that it was very nearly exaggeration-proof. He admitted that he approved of that aspect of it. Humans were forever exaggerating, and it was refreshing to come across something that seemed immune to this tendency.

But - oddly, it seemed to him - _no one_ had taken the time to tell him about the _smell_. . .

Not that he disliked the scent. . . but it _fascinated_ him. Air as fresh as the newborn wind, yet as ancient as the minerals the made up the bones of Earth - Air that could carry messages with all its layered subtlety - Air that fairly tingled of myths and legends - Air that had no other name but _fresh_, yet carried an overpowering taint of age - wisdom. . . power. . . death. . .

After the first moment he had smelled the ocean, he never again questioned the Terran stories of those who "had the sea in their blood" and had been compelled to go spend their lives roaming and working and trading and dying upon it.

For any race that had minimal control of its emotions, he freely admitted, this uniquely Terran thing called "The Ocean" could very obviously be a taskmaster indeed.

He spread out a bamboo-backed cloth mat upon the sand, unfolded a low chair onto the mat, and settled himself down to watch his charges interact with this wonder they so cavalierly called "the beach".

If Christopher Pike had been right in one thing, it was this - he could and would be an adequate chaperon in every way that counted. He set his mind to tracking every one of the cadets in his care, essentially managing to keep "half an eye" on each one of the fifteen of them.

Gaila, the Orion girl, was speedily involved in a game of beach volleyball, and four other cadets also chose this activity, scattering themselves around the prefabricated courts, and more often than not, easily joining in on games already in progress.

Five of the boys and two of the girls had already rented surfing gear, and after a good deal of what Spock could only identify as insults and argument (but what Christopher had confidently assured him was called "good-natured ribbing") Cadets Kirk and Sulu lead the charge towards the water. Spock watched them for eight minutes longer than he had the ones who had gone to the volleyball courts, for this was a far more dangerous and random activity. When it became clear that all of them were, if not proficient, then at least enjoying the mistakes they made, he shifted them to the periphery of his attention, though he would be alert to any accidents.

Two more of the girls had settled not far away, and were applying lotion of some sort and spreading out their belongings on their own mats. Spock nodded to himself. Illogical, but a perfectly safe activity, if one did not count sunburn as a danger.

That was fourteen accounted for. There was one cadet missing. . .

Quickly replaying the last several minutes in his mind, he belatedly noticed that Cadet Uhura had quietly slipped away from the throng, and had gone several dozen meters to the south, behind a natural curve in the land. She had been walking alone, calmly, with purpose, and had been carrying her belongings.

Again Spock nodded to himself. Inadvisable, perhaps, but acceptable nonetheless. If he saw or heard nothing from her direction in one hour, he would investigate, but not before then.

Then, his attention divided into these varying places, he focused the rest of his mind on the PADD he had brought. No doubt all of the cadets would assume that he had brought essays to grade, and technical journals for his amusement - and _had_ done these things - but for a moment he allowed himself to contemplate their universal shock if they had known that what he was reading at that moment was, in truth, a novel. Of Terran origin, no less. It caused him no little personal gratification to note that _did_, in actual solid fact, enjoy the writings of Isaac Asimov, and he would remember to thank Christopher for introducing him to these classics.

Precisely eleven and a half pages into "Foundation and Empire" an alarm went off in Spock's mind.

Swiftly laying aside the PADD he pulled off his shirt, long pants and half boots, and in only his swimming trunks he made a beeline for the water.

Waves came asymmetrically, but quite predictably, and unfortunately for Cadet Allerson, he had failed to predict the timing of one wave and had been caught in a riptide.

Having been trained in the skill of swimming by Starfleet, having taken their lifeguard and first aid courses, and having applied Vulcan strength and agility to that training, it was a matter of seventy-two seconds for Spock to pull the waterlogged but only slightly injured cadet to shore.

Most of the rest of his charges then gathered around most unhelpfully while he lifted the half-conscious young man onto the sand, and it was not until Cadet McCoy began elbowing his way through them - announcing the presence of a doctor, and demanding room to work - that Spock was able to ascertain Allerson's state.

"He is in some shock, doctor, but he is not otherwise hurt," he said, in his usual matter-of-fact tone.

"Yes," McCoy's answer was clipped, but he closed his tricorder and gave Allerson a few sharp pounds on the back. The young man brought up the water that he had inadvertently swallowed, and took a few deep breaths in between coughing.

Spock allowed McCoy and Sulu to escort Allerson back to the area with their towels, because even in an emergency situation, for him any skin-to-skin contact was disorienting and undesirable. Yet he stayed close by, until McCoy had settled the young man comfortably down, and insisted on observing him for half an hour at least. Spock nodded at this last, approvingly, and lifted his own towel to dry off his hair and ears. . .

Wait. . . that was a towel around his shoulders. When had it gotten there?

He looked at his nearby seating arrangements, and sure enough, one of the two towels he had left beside his chair had been taken up by someone, and draped around his shoulders while his attention had been focused on Allerson.

Who. . . ?

_Irrelevant._ He chided himself.

But. . . _who_?

_Illogical. This is unnecessary curiosity._

He was again raising a corner of the towel to dry his face when he caught it - just the merest whiff of something on the cloth, as real and as layered as the scent of the sea, but unique, and somehow even more compelling in its elusiveness. Trying to seem natural about it, he buried his face in the towel and inhaled deeply. Where had he smelled this before. . . .?

_On a PADD, in my office while grading essays. . . on a cup of tea during a practice session. . . on a stylus left on my desk for three days during a class-wide simulation. . ._

_Illogical. You are imagining things._

He folded the towel and re-settled himself in his chair, very carefully replaying every memory of those few minutes of crisis.

Thirty seconds later he had figured out who it was that had unobtrusively draped the towel around him, and he had also concluded that Cadet Uhura was not only safe, and alert to the needs of the group, but that she wanted her privacy as well.

Taking another deep breath of the inimitable sea air, he decided that she deserved it.


	4. Fire

_"Words are only painted fire; a look is the fire itself." _

- Mark Twain

* * *

=/\=

* * *

**Fire**

The nights were the worst.

During the day he could at least pretend he was here for a purpose, but enduring the cadets' most illogical and distinctly uncomfortable obsession with partying all night left him in a Vulcan equivalent of a nervous wreck. As he once again herded a group of his charges out of a bar and into a transport back to their hostelry, he slowly blinked and wondered why all this should discomfit him so. For five days he had not slept, but that was of little consequence. Loud music, he could endure. Overseeing up to fifteen individuals in the same room or general area was no over-burdensome task. Wild dancing he could ignore. Messes made mostly of alcoholic beverages mingled with various types of bodily fluids he could avoid - or clean up as the situation demanded. Other inappropriateness he could block out. But watching Starfleet's best and brightest make themselves sick (as he was sure they were doing) grated against his logic so much that he found his patience was coiled into a very firm knot of apprehension and disgust at the pit of his stomach.

There were always five or six cadets who stayed in their rooms all day now - these were the ones who spent every forenoon "recovering" from the night before, and every afternoon planning the next evening's bacchanals, and every night "livening up" the parties. Spock put no censure on these ones, nor lectured them at all, but he had a singularly difficult time reconciling these illogical actions with the inevitable consequences. What possible purpose could a week such as this serve? It weakened the cadet's immune systems, at the very least, and as far as he could tell, their moral fibre as well.

This particular night, many of the locals had been invited to the hostelry, and since there had been a gradual buildup of lights, decorations, sound equipment, and other accessories (so much so that the piles of things had spilled out of the rooms and were now being kept mostly in the area surrounding the swimming pool) and since all these things were here they _must_, of course, be used, and so the party was quite large, and very loud indeed.

He manged to make his customary circuit of the rooms and general area - thereby confirming the presence (whether they were awake, asleep, or otherwise) of each of the fifteen people under his care. Then he settled into the most underused corner, having retrieved a bottle of lemonade from one of the coolers, and sat back to observe the evening's entertainment, distaste warring with incomprehension in his mind.

When he could no longer stand the sight of the "dancing" he let his eyes wander over to the card games and conversation occurring on the periphery. McCoy seemed to be winning the day at one of the tables, for he had a large cigar lit and between his teeth. Gaila was sitting near one of the local young men. . . though he doubted that what they were doing could be labeled "conversation". He sighed a little. That was the Orion way, so the girl must know what she was doing. . . he hoped, at least. Sulu and Kirk were dancing and drinking by turns - they crossed Spock's line of vision once or twice, but all of a sudden his attention was directed to the one table where nothing at all seemed to be happening.

Three girls, Cadet Uhura among them, were sitting and talking and laughing and stirring their brightly colored drinks, and paying no attention at all to what was going on around them. All three of them were noticeably intoxicated, but not excessively so. The chaffing and joking, giggling and jesting all seemed quite normal, and realistic, if exuberantly unrestrained.

Then she turned, and after a moment of searching with her eyes, looked right at him.

It was a happy look, gentle and open. Her eyes were welcoming and her smile understanding. She seemed to know he would not be enjoying any of this activity, and with an innocently inviting tilt of her head she offered him the companionship of her table.

And suddenly, he understood.

All this activity. . . it was not illogical. . . it was a forging. A smelting away of illogical impulses, a shaking loose of the hard buildup of irrelevancies, and a good clean sweating out of every emotional paradox. It was a deeply empathic, communal form of cleansing, and she wanted to share that with him. She wanted him to share that with them.

But he could not.

Finding that at last he understood the meaning of these things forced him to once again address his difference - who he was - and it was not who these people were. They were none of him, and he was not of them.

_Different - it is __**too **__different. I cannot do this now, or I will lose myself._

With one look in her direction, an expression in his own eyes that he hoped she understood, he removed himself from the room.

They would voluntarily confine themselves to the hotel rooms for this evening, he felt sure. This party would not be over for some time. He could have a few hours of freedom.

For the first time in his life, he wandered. Up and down the coast he walked, a few miles one way, a few miles the other way, slowly, with no sure destination, until he found himself on "their" beach in a small cove he had not yet had the opportunity to see. He would not see it now. This place was at least somewhat familiar, so he closed his eyes, and tried to balance himself.

The beach was nearly deserted at this time of the night. He slowly inhaled to his lung's full capacity, and then let out the breath in twelve measured beats. The tension drained out of his system as he repeated this exercise. Five times, and he had regained his center of balance, but not his inner peace. Opening his eyes, he spotted a small driftwood campfire and made for it like a man lost in a wilderness who has finally seen a landmark he recognizes.

Dropping to his knees - in exhaustion or supplication he could not determine - and he reached for the small pouch he always kept in his pocket, measuring a small amount of the potent incense into his palm. Casting the powder into the still softly flaming coals, he let the sharp familiar scent overtake him, and he narrowed his vision to the flames, narrowed his thoughts to remembrances of quiet and peace, narrowed his existence to that one small area of flickering light. . . he was so deep into a meditative trance so quickly it did not occur to him that he would not sleep tonight either, nor did it matter - he would not be able to sleep soon in any case.

Even from across the room, that look of Uhura's had marked him, burned right past all his shields and _marked _him, as though she had somehow gained psi abilities, reached into his mind, and scribed her signature onto his _katra_. Unless he could lose himself in the paths of meditation, it would become all he could see, for days, waking or sleeping.

The incense smoldered as the fire burned low, and dew began to collect on the ring of cold stones - and also on his clothing as he sat, utterly immobile.

Yes, nights were definitely the worst.


End file.
